"It seemed to me, that within this circle there were only states and
citizens; there were no people at all." - Amitav Ghosh in The Shadow Lines,
Delhi, Ravi Dayal, 1988

"The source of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation: no group,
no individual may exercise authority not emanating expressly therefrom." - Declaration
of the Rights of Man and Citizen (1789)

"If the 1950s and 1960s were the decades of the anti colonial liberation
movements, the 1990s will prove to be the decade of post colonial liberation movements.
Self determination is not a mere phrase. Nor is it a dirty word. The political force that
it generates has begun to prevail over the power of many existing state structures." -
Tamil Nation, January 1992

The territorial, juridical state is in serious peril. Despite the legalistic
'legitimacy' that such states enjoy, and the formidable coercive resources that they often
have at their disposal, their very existence is facing concerted challenges, the world
over, from those who speak the emotionally charged language of 'national
self-determination.'

Perhaps the most striking facet of the confrontation of state and nation is that it is omnipresent. It characterises a wide variety or
societies and polities, and not merely in the 'Third' World alone - though it is a fact
that such conflict is most pervasive in developing countries.

The former 'socialist' bloc has already disintegrated, and a large number of
independent states, all justifying their existence in the name of 'nationalism' and 'self
determination', have emerged from the wreckage. Nor are the industrialised states of the
capitalist West immune to challenges to their authority that emanate from some
approximation or variation of nationalist sentiment.

But, as Walker Connor has correctly pointed out, 'few indeed are the scholars who can
claim to have anticipated even the possibility of such a trend' (1978: Ethnic and
Racial Studies 1,4 October pp.377-400).

The conventional wisdom in Western scholarship held that the 'neutral' Third World
states, headed by cosmopolitan elites, that emerged in the wake of decolonisation, would
rapidly render 'primordial', 'parochial' and 'tribal' allegiances redundant (for
example, Geertz - Old Societies and New States, New York, Free Press, 1963)

My study of Sri Lanka, for one, demonstrates that this optimism was not merely
founded on myth - it was a farce. It is the supposedly 'neutral' state (the 'racketeer'
that perpetrates 'organised crime', in Tilly's parlance), primarily the Sri Lankan but
also the Indian, that stands squarely indicted in my account of the genesis and evolution
of the Sinhalese - Tamil conflict and of the rise and consolidation of the Tamil national
liberation movement in Sri Lanka.

At the other end of the political spectrum meanwhile, the ideologues of 'socialism' had
convinced themselves that 'Marxist - Leninist' indoctrination, and fraternal socialist
solidarity, would render such historically retrograde and antiquated ideas as nationalism
simply irrelevant. In one sense, the second group were closer to reality than the first.
They at least explicitly acknowledged that their state-building efforts were having to
deal with nationalism as opposed to 'primordialism' 'parochialism', etc. But, even so, the
extent of their self delusion is today there for all to see.

Crawford Young wrote in 1976 that

"despite the frequently arbitrary and artificial manner in which it came into
being, the state-system is firmly anchored in contemporary reality, and the central trend
appears to be its aggrandisement and reinforcement...whether it is viewed as the ultimate
framework for human fulfilment or a constricting straitjacket of discord and division,
that the state - system in approximately its present form is here to stay seems one of the
most durable axioms of modern politics." (Politics of Cultural Pluralism,
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976 p82)

Indeed, the international' state system has for long been so much a part of our
routinised perceptions of reality that its very existence has seemed entirely banal and
ordinary. But seventeen years down the road, with the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and
Czechoslovakia no longer in existence, this most resilient of modern political axioms
seems far less permanent than Young assumed it to be. Indeed, Young's most recent writing
bears ample testimony to the fact that the equations and conditions governing the workings
of the 'international system' have dramatically changed. (National and Colonial
Questions and Marxism in Alexander Motyl,ed., Thinking Theoretically about Soviet
Nationalities, New York, Columbia University Press, 1992)

Another critical transformation that seems imminent is the
erosion of the normative force of 'territorial integrity' doctrines in international
affairs. The long period of state stability appears at an end. The break-up or Canada,
Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Sri Lanka, among others (apart from the Soviet Union), is
no longer a remote contingency. Some of these will find formulas for survival, but it is
inconceivable that all will persist in their present form into the next century. The
international normative order will thus once again need to redefine the scope and limits
of the doctrine of self-determination.

The clash between the ever-increasing clamour of claims to nationhood and aspirations
to sovereignty, on the one hand. and the persistence, indeed consolidation, of visions of
a monolithic, unitarian, and indivisible statehood, on the other, certainly represents one
of the most striking contradictions, and one of the most fundamental moral and ideological
conflicts, of our times.

As Lisa Anderson has observed, politics in the modern Middle East has been
characterised by an almost endemic strain between officially sanctioned 'state
patriotism', on the one hand, and the appeal of alternate identities', on the other.
As a result, 'the notions of citizenship, patriotism and love of country which undergird
loyalty to the modem state frequently face competing conceptions of identity, loyalty and
legitimacy' (The State in the Middle East and North Africa in Comparative Politics
20,1 October 1987)

Rodolfo Stavenhagen has pointed out that the central
contradiction in Latin American politics is that between the 'model of the unitary state
...adopted after the wars of independence and developed during the republican period', and
the 'ethnic and cultural diversity of the societies of Latin America' (Challenging the
Nation-State in Latin America, Journal of International Affairs 45,2 1992)

Jackson and Rosberg have commented that 'in almost every
Black African country, there are ethnic groups that wish to re­draw international
boundaries', and that movements championing the cause of 'self determination' are 'alive
sociologically among millions of Africans' (Why Africa's Weak States Persist - World
Politics October 1982 pp1-24)

Thus, it would appear that just as the dialectic of an
overpowering colonial state and subjugated civil society gave rise to anti­colonial
liberation movements, so also the dialectic of the nationalist state and excluded,
oppressed sections of society, has led to the growth of 'post­colonial' liberation
struggles. While it remains to be seen whether the 1990s will go down in history as the
decade of post­colonial liberation, it is a reality that this dialectic of state and
society has culminated in certain instances, Sri Lanka being a most notable example, in an
almost total rejection by a substantial segment of civil society of the ideology that has
hitherto sustained and legitimised the existence of the juridical state.

The contest is, above all, over the notion of
sovereignty - a conceptualisation of sovereignty that emanates from the highest echelons
of a centralised state is at fundamental variance with one that holds that sovereignty
resides essentially in the social base of that self­defining community, the 'nation'.

Dissent on this critical core of the state's raison d'etre
is usually regarded as the height of sedition, and sovereignty has been declared a
non­negotiable issue, as in Sri Lanka. Paradoxically, however, as we have seen, the very
denial of nationhood to a collectivity that has come to regard itself as such, and the use
of coercion to decisively establish the supremacy and inviolability of the juridical
state, seems to further the spread of 'national' consciousness among the dissenting
collectivity, and heighten the resolve of the alienated to resist the state, with arms if
necessary.

The result of this state­society dialectic is precisely
what we have in Sri Lanka today: civil war and the coming into being of two national
states (in the true sense of the term) on practically every level but the formal,
legalistic, juridical one.

Assertions of a collective national identity, and demands
for popular sovereignty, are today sweeping the former Soviet Union, eastern and central
Europe, the Middle East, Canada, The Horn of Africa and other parts of the world. But
perhaps nowhere are they being articulated more powerfully, and resisted more stoically,
as in South Asia in general, and Sri Lanka in particular.

Indeed, there is a double irony inherent in the
unquestioning acceptance of the legitimacy of unitary states, so near­universal among
scholars and lay public alike. in the context of much of the 'Third World' including the
Indian subcontinent.

The first irony is that such states, in the case
of the vast majority of the 'nations' of. Asia, Africa and Latin America, are legacies of
colonial conquest and imperialist partition. As Jackson and Roseberg have pointed
out in the context of sub­Saharan Africa, 'the juridical state in black Africa is a novel
and arbitrary political unit: the territorial boundaries, legal identities and often even
the names of states are contrivances of colonial rule' . (Why Africa's Weak States
Persist - World Politics October 1982 pp1-24)

And, of course, it is generally believed, in most of the
'Third World', that the colonial era was one of tyranny and enslavement. What compounds
the irony is that ruling Third World 'nationalist' elites, legators of a tradition of
political activism which historically defined its agenda in total, binary opposition to
colonial power, are today the greatest champions of the sanctification and perpetuation,
apparently by any means necessary of the centralised, territorial entities bequeathed by
the colonialist.

In such circumstances it is hardly a surprise that the
major states in the South Asian region have been confronted with broadly similar
challenges to entrained authority, and, no less importantly, to the hegemonic discourse
revolving around that misnomer among misnomers, the 'nation­state'. The observation Hamza
Alavi made two decades ago about Pakistan can thus be readily extended to the rest of the
subcontinent:

"The...outstanding fact about Pakistan's political
history is that the most powerful challenges to the dominant central authority...came
primarily from political movements that drew their strength from people of underprivileged
regions and voiced demands for regional autonomy and for a fuller share...in the
distribution of resources, as well as in state power" (New Left Review 74
July-August, 1972)

Indeed, the national question is a paramount political
issue in the subcontinent today. While the Kashmiri, Sikh, Tamil, Assamese, Chakma and
other movements are very different in many respects, they do share in common an
uncompromising opposition to the authority, and unequivocal rejection of the legacy, of
the 'nation­state' as presently constituted. Radical Tamil nationalists in Sri Lanka, for
one, have explicitly recognised that theirs is not an isolated struggle, but an
inseparable part of the fate of the subcontinent as a whole:

"The Tamil national liberation struggle is not taking
place in outer space. It is taking place on the ground and in the Indian region. The
political impact of much that happens on the...subcontinent is also felt by the people of
Tamil Eelam. Though reports of the disintegration of the Indian Union are often greatly
exaggerated, events in the Soviet Union show that empires do crumble, if they do not
recognise, well in time, the political force of emergent nationalisms, and take steps to
restructure in a genuine and meaningful way. And for the Indian Union the time is now.
Unity will emerge only when the different nations of the Indian Union are recognised as
equals, not when it is sought to deny their existence. Unity will emerge only when New
Delhi acquires the vision and the strength to constitute (India as) a federal commonwealth
of free and equal nations. It will be futile for New Delhi, Canute­like, to order the
rising tide of...nationalism to recede. The rising tide of Kashmiri nationalism will not
recede in the years to come. Neither will Assamese nationalism recede...on the contrary,
these nationalisms and others will grow from year to year" (emphasis added). (Editorial, Tamil
Nation, June 1992, p.10)

In light of this reality, the need to resolve the
contradiction that has arisen between state power and nationalist consciousness attains a
grave urgency. Such an exercise, though it certainly represents a major intellectual
challenge, is not merely of academic interest. On its success depends the future of many
millions, as well as prospects of regional stability, mutual coexistence and cooperation,
and, ultimately, world peace. What, then, are our options?

One ironical point that must be noted at this stage is
that the 'post colonial' nationalists seem to be just as enamoured of the state as their
anti colonial predecessors. To the Tamil Tigers, it is an article of
faith that the Tamil nation must seek its ultimate fulfilment or self­expression, in a
territorially demarcated State of Tamil Eelam.

Everything in Tiger politics is geared towards the
achievement of this intimate 'political objective'. In this regard, the Tigers appear to
have thoroughly imbibed the Leninist maxim that 'the basic question of any revolution is
that of power in the State. Without a clear grasp of that question, there can be no talk
of conscious participation in a revolution, nor to speak of leadership of it' (Lenin -
Collected Works, Volume 20, Moscow, Progressive Publishers, 1978)

One can understand where this uncompromising commitment to
the normative prescription of secession springs from. Above all, it stems from a yearning
for physical safety, and security from the violence of the military and the mobs, to which
the Tamil people have repeatedly been subjected. It also arises from the incontestable
fact that Tamil demands for meaningful regional autonomy, and for a federal redistribution
of power within a united Sri Lanka, have repeatedly been dismissed as non­negotiable, and
a holy cow has instead been made of a discriminatory and brutally authoritarian central
state.

However, there are serious problems inherent in a
partitionist argument...

Even so, however, there are serious problems inherent in a
partitionist argument, as reflected in the fetishisation of an independent state as the
ultimate panacea to the Tamil predicament. Most importantly perhaps, the thrust of such an
argument is essentially at variance with the fluidity, flexibility and malleability of the
process of identity formation and transformation that results in the coming into being of
a nationality.

Simple minded votaries of partition do not usually take
into account the reality of the existence of multiple identities. On the contrary, they
posit the supremacy, presumably for all time to come, of one particular identity (say,
'Tamil') over all possible alternatives, rivals and competitors (even if that identity may
actually have emerged as the definitive focus of group behaviour at a certain point in
time, as in the case of the Tamils of Sri Lanka). Thus, the Muslim population of eastern
Bengal attained an impressive degree of solidarity with their brethren in West Pakistan in
1946-47, but that did not prevent the state of Pakistan from being shattered by the
explosive force of Bengali mass nationalism (in whose rise, incidentally, the post
colonial Pakistan state played a central role, a mere quarter century later! As Horowitz
comments:

"For most ethnically divided states, secession or
partition is likely to merely effect a re-ordering of heterogeneity. The prescriptions
that postulate a clean break are heedless of both the complexity of ethnic configurations
in such states and the fluidity of identities at different levels of salience.." (Horowitz
- Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Berkeley, University of California Press,1985: pp583­92)

It is this neglect of subtleties that prompts Robert Dahl
to brand partitionist positions a form of 'philosophical anarchism'. (See Dahl in
Democracy, Majority Rule and Gorbachev's Referendum in Dissent, Fall 1991, 491­96 for a
thoughtful discussion of the many problems and negative implications that accompany
wholesale fragmentation, as is happening in the former Soviet Union today)

Equally importantly, and disturbingly, the notion of a
Tamil national fraternity that seeks fulfilment in an independent homeland of Eelam itself
has strongly unitarian and monolithic overtones to it, much in the style of La Republique
une et Indivisible of French liturgy, and the 'One Nation, Indivisible' of the American
pledge of allegiance. Even though the ideal of Eelam may today signify a beacon of
liberation to the overwhelming majority of Ceylon Tamils, who is to say that it might not
come to be perceived tomorrow as a mechanism of a stifling, imposed homogeneity, an
ideological straitjacket that propagates a false monolithicism?

In this context, movements such as the Liberation Tigers,
which pride themselves on their 'revolutionary' credentials, would do well to take note of
Benedict Anderson's warning that the model of 'official nationalism' assumes relevance,
above all, at the moment when revolutionaries successfully take control of the state, and
are for the first time in a position to use the power of the state in pursuit of their
visions...even the most determinedly radical revolutionaries always, to some degree,
inherit the state from the fallen regime...like the complex electrical system in any large
mansion where the owner has fled, the state awaits the new owner's hand at the switch to
be very much its old brilliant self again. One should therefore not be much surprised if
revolutionary leaderships, consciously or unconsciously, come to play lord of the
manor...the more the ancient dynastic state is naturalised, the more its antique finery
can be wrapped around revolutionary shoulders (Imagined Communities, London, Verso
1983: pp145-46)

There are also serious practical problems inherent in the
partitionist solution. For one thing, the territorial boundaries of putative states are
usually contested - and a settlement acceptable to all parties concerned would probably
require, in most cases at least, lengthy negotiations, arbitration and adjudication. This
is very much the situation in Sri Lanka, where the Sinhalese Buddhist state has
consistently refused to recognise the North and East as the 'traditional homeland' of the
Tamil people.

Closely related to this problem is the exceptionally
urgent question of minorities within the nearly sovereign political units. The
demographics of most of the world today are such that it is infeasible to try to segregate
whole collectivities, even if they are 'nations', from one another, and almost any newly
independent state is bound to have some kind of 'minority problem' of its own. As is well
known this factor is playing havoc with prospects of peace normalcy and economic progress
throughout the territories of the former Soviet Union (the tragic conflicts in
Nagorno­Karabakh, the northern Caucasus and Moldavia being the most extreme instances),
as well as in Croatia and, above all, Bosnia­Herczegovina, both formerly constituents of
the deceased Yugoslav state.(Slovenia, also a former constituent of Yugoslavia, is a rare
exception to this general rule - it has a largely homogeneous population.)

This is also a major consideration in Sri Lanka, where the
Ceylonese Muslims, who comprise close to a fifth of the population of the areas that would
constitute the state or Tamil Eelam (and a full one­third in the eastern province), and
are sometimes called the 'third nationality' of Sri Lanka, have repeatedly made it clear
that they wish to have no truck with the Tamil bid for secession.

In recent years, there have frequently been violent
clashes between radical Tamil youth and local Muslims in the eastern province and a number
of brutal massacres and counter­massacres have occurred as well.

The Tamil­Muslim conflict in the
eastern province has added an entirely new dimension to the struggle between the
Tamils and the Sri Lankan state, and the 'Muslim question' now deserves to be seen as an
integral aspect of any postulated solution. Thus, it seems evident that if peace, justice
and reconciliation are the eventual goals, redrawing the map of the world anywhere and
everywhere might not be the most ideal or effective way of going about it.

Moral dilemma of the urge to secession...

Nonetheless, it remains very true that the urge to
secession, especially when it assumes the form of a mass movement, leaves the scholar
saddled with a particularly difficult moral dilemma. As Horowitz observes,

"there are times when a resulting homogeneity may be
envisioned, or when, despite all its problems, partition seems the least bad of the
alternatives... there are times when the passion for 'self­determination'
is so great that it is senseless to thwart it" (emphasis added).(Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Berkeley, University of California
Press,1985: pp588­92)

As long as Tamil Eelam remains a 'state of mind', a
revolutionary ideal as opposed to a juridical reality, the model of an oppressive
'official nationalism' will probably not have a chance to fully assert itself, and the
struggle for Tamil liberation will probably continue to call forth the unstinting devotion
and commitment of the vast majority of Sri Lankan Tamils.

It is especially important to remember that what makes the
Tiger Movement a veritable political religion for its
participants and supporters is that it is considered a vehicle for the attainment not
simply of national freedom, but also of social liberation.

'Self determination' in
Tiger ideology, is defined as national liberation and social revolution. For those
countless Tamils, particularly the youth, who subscribe to this view, the struggle against
the state holds out the prospect of freedom, not just from national oppression, but also
from social inequality and exploitation. The inspirational power of the idea of a Tamil
state that will not just be independent, but will also not replicate traditional forms of
social domination and oppression, is so great that the scholar's penchant for pointing out
the possible pitfalls of a partitionist solution may well seemincidental, if not entirely redundant, to those in the frontline of
the revolutionarv struggle. The suicide bomber and the cyanide capsule guerrilla are
here to stay.

This moral dilemma has assumed particular salience and
topicality with the fracturing of the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and
Czechoslovakia, and the coming into being of a myriad of sovereign states in these
regions. With members of the 'international comrnunity' falling over each other in the
rush to establish diplomatic and economic missions in the capitals of Tadjikistan.
Kirghizia, Estonia, Slovenia et al., the recent words of a ranking Tamil nationalist
leader seem especially poignant "We ask why do you look at our problem differently?
Why adopt two standards and two different approaches to that which is after all very
similar? Why do you look at national questions in the Third World differently?' (Lawrence
Thilagar in A War Fratricidal in Tamil Nation, London, January 1992).

Of course, the blatant opportunism and double standards of
the 'international community' ('freedom struggle' and 'self-determination' when
convenient, 'terrorism' and 'civil war' when inconvenient) is hardly something that
affects the Tamil struggle alone. A Bosnian military commander, for example, has recently
said what is arguably the last word on this question:

'If you ask me, the whole of the international community
are bastards. Nobody is helping us. What's more, they have sold out and are accomplices to
the extermination of our people'. (Zulfiqar alias 'Zuka', former smuggler and later
one of the most important Bosnian commanders in the Sarajevo area. Quoted in Fuentes 1993).

The note of ambivalence in the analysis of the last few
pages cannot have gone unnoticed. In a way, this element of uncertainty, of doubt, is
unavoidable, for the problem is one of the greatest complexity. In the words of Dahl:

'A crisp, unimpeachable solution (to the question of
states, nations and sovereignty) would be a marvellous achievement of political theory or
practice. Alas, no altogether satisfactory solution seems to exist' (Democracy,
Majority Rule and Gorbachev's Referendum in Dissent, Fall 1991, p493)

If the juridical state is to survive at all, it
must seek an honourable peace with nationalism...

It seems indisputable, however, that if the juridical
state is to survive at all, it must seek a rapprochement, an honourable peace, with the
forces of mass nationalism. This is a particularly desperate imperative in Sri Lanka,
where a large number of the most important empirical attributes of state sovereignty have
been very seriously eroded and undermined, if not altogether destroyed, by the Tamil
uprising.

The first of these is popular acceptance and recognition
of the legitimacy of the state's authority- the 'consent of the governed', which, in the
ultimate analysis, must constitute the moral foundation of every truly democratic state.
This popular sanction is something which is dangerously close to becoming extinct in the
Ceylon Tamils' attitude towards Colombo. As Young points out -

'the basic survival of the state will always be in doubt
if large numbers of subjects, particularly if they are...collectivities, reject the state
as a legitimate framework' (Crawford
Young- Politics of Cultural Pluralism,
University of Wisconsin Press, 1976 p70)

For the rising generation of Sri Lankan Tamils, who have
grown up in an environment of fervent nationalism in the quasi­state created by the
Tigers in their 'liberated zones' in the north, it makes very little sense that they are
still, formally speaking, citizens of a juridical state called Sri Lanka, which, apart
from exercising no positive influence over their lives, intermittently bombs them from the
air and tries to starve them into submission.

The second key defining principle of the modern state that
has been fatally undermined in Sri Lanka is the state's monopoly over the means and
instruments of coercion, with all its implications for the effective control of territory.
Since l985­86, the Jaffna peninsula, the thickly populated Tamil heartland in the far
north, has virtually been an undeclared Eelam with Colombo's authority practically
non­existent and all aspects of administration total in the grip of the LTTE. Today, the
LTTE exercises total control over some 85 per cent of the area of the northern province,
and maintains a major presence throughout the eastern province as well. Despite the most
strenuous efforts of the Sri Lankan armed forces, it has proved impossible to dislodge the
LTTE from the north, and from its rural and jungle strongholds in the east.

This firm control over the majority of the territory and
population of 'Tamil Eelam' has enabled the ever­resourceful and hardworking Tigers to
set up the framework of what amounts to a de facto state in their northern 'liberated
territories', especially the Jaffna peninsula. A recent visitor to the north observed that
while the unofficial border between Sri Lanka and Tamil Eelam', marked by the first Tiger
checkpoint just outside Vavuniya town, was 'not (yet) an international border, it
might as well be',(Vijay Joshi, reporting in the Asaha Evening News Japan, 29
September 1992) whileanother discovered that
'this jungle checkpost is the gateway to what is in effect, the de facto state of Tamil
Eelam'.

Indeed, it would be a mistake to call the Tigers the
'parallel government' in northern Sri Lanka, for they constitute what is in effect the
sole government in that region. The LTTE has assiduously built on its military
success ire expelling the Sri Lankan army from the 'liberated areas' by establishing its
own police force, judiciary, taxation structure, education department, transportation
system and information and broadcasting networks (they have their own radio and television
stations) throughout the north, to the extent that the de facto Eelam has
unmistakably begun to exhibit many of the empirical features of a sovereign state.

In fact, from the standpoint purely of empirical criteria,
it is absolutely no exaggeration to say that Sri Lanka does not qualify as a full­fledged
state any longer (and has not for some time now). It would be more accurate to
characterise the present situation in Sri Lanka as one of 'fragmented' or 'multiple'
sovereignty, with the fragmentation of state authority into two epicentres, Tiger Jaffna
and Sinhalese­Buddhist Colombo, each claiming exclusive legitimacy in a territory (the
north and east) where only one such violence and taxation monopoly had previously operated
(for an elaboration of this theme see Tilly - Revolutions and Collective Violence in
Greenstein and Polsby eds., Handbook of Political Science, Volume 3 1975, pp 483­553).

And the fact that the Tigers are, in the unromanticised professional opinion of an Indian general who
fought against them, 'an unique fighting force', unparalleled in 'motivation and calibre',
makes the viability of a 'military solution' to the national question very tenuous indeed.
Even if, hypothetically speaking, the state was to defeat the nationalist resistance in
battle, such an exercise would be ultimately futile, in that it would set the clock back
even further on winning the 'hearts and minds' of an already profoundly alienated
populace. N. Ram (l99l) correctly argues that

"talk about 'liquidating' the LTTE and hammering down
amilitary solution in the north and east is old and
virtually useless currency in Sri Lankan politics...at the end of the chapter,each adversary (of the Tigers) has learnt the same
bitter lesson: the guerrilla 'fish' cannot be flushed out of the water by any means short
of genocide The problem...lies as much in the socio­political arena and in the hearts and
minds of divided, bitter and alienated people as it lies down the barrel of the gun."
(N.Ram - India's Moral and Political Responsibility in the Independent, Bombay, 9 June
1991)

As Dahl has remarked, 'in practice, as distinct
from theory, the usual solution (to national questions) has been force plus time'(Democracy, Majority Rule and Gorbachev's Referendum in Dissent, Fall 1991, p493)

In Sri Lanka, force is simply not feasible any longer as a
solution (or even part thereof), while time, even by the most optimistic calculations, is
rapidly running out.

Even the most dedicated of 'Eelamists' has
compelling pragmatic motives to seek negotiated solutions...

All this notwithstanding, it remains perfectly valid that
even the most dedicated of 'Eelamists' has compelling pragmatic motives to seek negotiated
solutions to the conflict. Why? One reason certainly is that

a (purely) military solution to this conflict is unlikely
to succeed. The Sri Lankan government cannot win this war, nor can India win it for them.
The Tigers are too organised and have far too much grassroots support to be wiped
out...(but) on the other hand Tamils cannot win this war either. They can drag it
out and frustrate both the Indian and Sri Lanka Governments but it is seriously doubtful
that they can establish Eelam by force. If they drag it out too long, they might even
incur the wrath of a war­weary local people which would spell disaster for a movement
that relies heavily on grassroots support (Brian Senewiratne - An evaluation of
solutions to Sri Lanka's Ethnic conflict in N.Seevaratnamed., The Tamil National Question
and the Indo Sri Lanka Accord, Konark Publishers, New Delhi, 1989: p 31)

But there is an even more crucial factor involved here.
While unflinching determination, a powerful military capability, and a congruence
with the social base may all be necessary components of a formidable bid for secession,
they are in themselves not sufficient to establish a fully sovereign state in the world of
today. This is because 'sovereignty', in the practical sense, is not composed of empirical
criteria alone - it also has a critically important juridical aspect to it (for
a detailed explanation of these concepts, see Jackson and Rosberg 1982).

The juridical aspect translates, in everyday terms, into 'international recognition.' This precious commodity is something
that can be conferred only by the 'international community' of extant sovereign states
acting through its co-ordinating mechanisms, such as the United Nations.

And we have already had occasion to discuss the
conservatism and opportunism of this particular 'community' of 'nations'. It does seem, as
of now, that the international recognition which would convert Tamil Eelam's de facto
existence into a de jure one has relatively little prospect of materialising in the very
near future.

The bitterness generated by the Indo­Tamil war of
1987­90, the alleged complicity of members of the LTTE in the assassination of former
Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Tamil Nadu in May 1991, and India's own growing
crisis of survival as an united, democratic and secular state all make it rather unlikely
that New Delhi will have either the time or the inclination to take the lead in securing
international recognition for an independent Sri Lankan Tamil state (as it did so
successfully in the case of Bangladesh in 1971).

This denial of formal statehood means that Tamil Eelam,
while possessing many of the empirical qualifications of sovereignty, is likely to remain
a non entity in the juridical sense for the foreseeable future. We thus have a
peculiar situation of fractured sovereignty in contemporary Ceylon, with 'Sri Lanka'
clinging on to juridical legitimacy but very seriously deficient in empirical
statehood, and 'Tamil Eelam' empirically largely sovereign but, as of now, devoid of
juridical recognition.

A negotiated resolution to the national question,
this must surely rank as a truly desperate imperative in so far as those at the helm of
the Sinhalese­Buddhist state...

If the warriors of Tamil Eelam have good reason to seek a
negotiated resolution to the national question, this must surely rank as a truly desperate
imperative in so far as those at the helm of the Sinhalese­Buddhist state are concerned.
In addition to all the considerations outlined in the last few pages, it would appear, as
of early 1993, that even the military balance in the Tamil region is shifting decisively
against Colombo, and that the Tigers whose morale and motivation apparently remains as
strong as ever, are gradually gaining in the extremely protracted and painful war of
attrition, certainly in the north and perhaps in the east as well.

A recent report in a very mainstream Indian magazine, forinstance, noted with same trepidation that the (Sri Lankan)
army is reeling from heavy casualties and collapsing logistics', and that 'an estimated
6,000 army men have deserted this year (1992), many...with arms (the total operational
strength of the Sri Lankan army is believed to be less than 60,000)(Ramesh Menon Sri
Lanka: Tilting the Scales India Today, 15 December 1992, p109)

Indeed, the Tigers are now (early 1993) killing government
soldiers at an average rate which is well in excess of a hundred a month (mostly in the
eastern. province), and during the second half of 1992, they successfully
executed several spectacular 'decapitation attacks' on the enemy command structure,
eliminating in the process many of the top­ranking officers in the Sri Lankan army and
navy

Not that those who control state power in Sri Lanka are
entirely ignorant of these unavoidable realities. The late Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe
Premadasa recently expressed the opinion that 'a peaceful solution to the north­east
(Tamil?) crisis' is essential to 'save innocent lives', 'release. .funds to improve the
living conditions of the people', and, most instructively, to 'prevent the division of the
country'.

But a 'just peace', as the Tigers call it is
apparently easier said than done. Fully in line with Premadasa's thinking, the 'Indian'
Tamil minister in the Sri Lankan cabinet, the octogenarian Mr. S. Thondaman, had as early
as December 1991, proposed a political solution to the national question. Candidly
admitting that only the grant of 'maximum autonomy to the people of the North­East
Province can stem the disintegration of the nation' (sic), the minister opined that 'a
commitment from the Central Government and the majority community to share power with the
people of the North-East Province is imperative for peace'

The provisions of the package, if implemented, would
effectively transform Ceylon into a confederal polity, and concede the essence of Tamil
self­determination while preserving the unity and territorial integrity of the juridical
state. The Tigers had welcomed the suggestions as a 'positive development' and an
'advance' and called for a public debate and detailed discussions, as well as
face­to­tace negotiations, to thrash out ,any remaining ambiguities or omissions.

The proposals were aborted at the very outset. They
provoked a hysterically negative response from a
cross­section of influential Sinhalese opinion, socialised over generations to view even
the slightest concession to the Tamils with suspicion, with the Buddhist clergy, in an
eerie repeat of their performance at the time of the B C Pact in 1958, leading the charge
of the faithful. A prominent monk denounced the proposals as 'treacherous, and declared
that there 'should be no negotiations (with the Tamils) till the war has been successfully
concluded.'

An impromptu Organisation called the 'Sinhalese Defence
Movement' took it upon itself to inform the public that the proposals, if implemented,
would have 'disastrous consequences for the country', 'what the LTTE could not obtain by
force of arms they would have received as a gift', and that 'the heroic sacrifices of the
Sri Lankan armed forces who fought to prevent the creation of Eelam would have been in
vain'. An alarmed government, concerned, no doubt. about the implications of such
sentiments for its electoral prospects, promptly put the peace plan in cold storage.

This episode clearly reveals that there are serious
structural obstacles to a lasting settlement in the Sri Lankan situation. But why
precisely, does the Sinhalese Buddhist elite, pious platitudes notwithstanding,
consistently find it so difficult to reach an understanding with the Tamils? I believe
that in order to arrive at a complete explanation of this puzzle, one must go beyond the 'competitive chauvinism' bred by Sri Lanka's form of electoral
competition.

Cosmetic surgery will not work....

What is urgently needed in Sri Lanka today is clearly a
fundamental democratisation of the apparatus and structure of the state. Cosmetic surgery
will not work. Any solution to the national question, if it is to retain any viability at
all, must go far beyond halfway­house liberalising reforms (the 'constitutional
engineering' advocated by Horowitz, or the elitist 'consociationalism' of Arend Lijphart)
such as proportional representation or a diluted and insignificant local autonomy. Of
course, the Sri Lankan stateelite finds it hard
enough to reconcile itself to the thought of even such minor reforms. But if ever (God
forbid!) it were to have to agree to the structural transformation that is the need
of the hour, the Sri Lankan state that would emerge in the
aftermath of the dernocratisation process would surely bear rather little resemblance to
the entity that existed prior to the initiation of that process.

In a truly and substantively democratic state of Sri
Lanka, would there be any place (in the hierarchy of power, at least) for the
post­colonial elite who have built their careers and legitimised their privileges by
selling to the Sinhalese people a thoroughly hollow and foul opiate of a monolithic,
indivisible sovereignty, purportedly based on the inalienable rights of the 'majority'?

Probably not. Indeed to the extent that even the
initiation of a substantive democratisation would be tantamount to an admission that the
state building enterprise in Sri Lanka has been deeply flawed from the very beginning, an
enraged Sinhalese constituency might then justifiably demand an explanation from their
leaders as to why they have been led up the garden path for so many years and decades. Why
did rivers of blood have to be shed if the enemies of the unitary state were right after
all?

With the onset of a process of genuine democratisation,
there is a real risk that the entire edifice of state authority might be irrevocably
undermined, and that the Jayewardenes, Bandaranaikes, ultra nationalist interest groups
such as the Buddhist clergy, hard-liners in the military and cynically opportunist and
hypocritical 'leftist' factions, all compromised and tainted by their association with
that state structure and with the propagation of the supremacy of the 'majority', might
come tumbling down from their self­arrogated lofty pedestals as well. In other words,
heads would roll, at least in the figurative sense, and who knows, perhaps literally as
well.

It is this understandable fear of upheaval, I believe, which
blocks the will to systemic change in Sri Lanka. A bleeding and seemingly interminable war
is certainly an unpalatable prospect- but at least the ones who are losing their lives in
this conflict, in the thousands, are ordinary Tamils and Sinhalese. If the alternative-a
radical and comprehensive restructuring of the state- means (as it well might) that the
political and perhaps even physical survival of the hitherto privileged and dominant would
be under grave and immediate threat, that, by comparison, is an entirely unacceptable
proposition.

Monolithic, unitary conceptions of state
sovereignty will not work...

But this pattern also illustrates what I believe is a much
wider phenomenon the continuing persistence, even consolidation, of monolithic, unitary
conceptions of state sovereignty. Indeed, the intensity of such a commitment, at least in
the South Asian context, appears to be actually increasing in direct proportion to the
rise of potent and powerful challenges to precisely that kind of authority-yet another
instance, it would seem, of the dialectic of state and society.

The recent meteoric rise of the extreme centralist,
unitarist and majoritarian ('Hindu') chauvinist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on India's
political firmament is a good case in point. Since the 'Hindutva' movement the BJP
represents is itself an exceptionally ugly and malignant symptom, or manifestation, of a
deep structural crisis afflicting an increasingly unitary Indian state system (largely
dominated, since 1947, by a failed and discredited ruling order, symbolised by the
Congress party), it is little surprise that the B)P seems to attach inordinate importance,
in its platform, to, say, the massive popular uprising for independence currently raging
in Indian­held Kashmir (this of course also supplies a handy pretext to bait Muslims in
general, and foment anti­Pakistan hysteria)

The fate of Sri Lanka is a grim warning as to what happens
when movements professing such singularly destructive and anti- democratic ideologies succeed in seizing control of the state.
Indeed, the central tenets of the 'Hindutva' world­view bear an uncanny, almost eerie
similarity to the most virulent and xenophobic aspects of the ideology of modern
Sinhalese­Buddhist nationalism. It is a fact that whenever and wherever such movements
have succeeded in capturing the state power they all crave, both the 'majority' they claim
to speak for, and the (always indispensable!) 'minority' they stereotype and vilify as the
'other', have ended up paying a terrible price. One can only hope that India will not
tread its own variant of the disastrous road charted by its small neighbour.

The metaphor that inescapably comes to mind is that of a
person resolutely and defiantly sitting it out in a badly leaking boat in mid­ocean, or
even trying to enlarge the hole through which the water flows into the boat.
Decentralisation and devolution of power will, in the opinion of these self­proclaimed
usurpers of the 'nationalist' mantle, whether 'Hindu' or 'Sinhalese Buddhist', foster
fragmentation arid dismemberment, rather than what I feel it would, in all probability,
lead to the democratic empowerment of civil society as a whole.

This opinion regards the democratisation of the state and
the sharing of power between the Sinhalese and Tamil nations as a zero­sum game-while
empirical studies of similar experiments world-wide actually suggest that 'there is no
reason to posit a zero­sum relationship between power available to central and regional
units of government' (Crawford Young - Politics of Cultural Pluralism, Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1976 p77).

Yet the inadequacies, if not the inappropriateness, of
centralised state structures in highly diversified societies are becoming increasingly
obvious all over the globe. Sri Lanka is but an extreme instance of a world-wide
phenomenon.

Yugoslavia and Quebec...

There are two cases in the contemporary world that would
seem to stand in contradiction to my argument. One of these is the disintegration of the
ostensibly 'federal' state of Yugoslavia; the other is the recent resurgence of separatist
sentiment in Quebec, the Francophone province already enjoying considerable autonomy
within Canada. But as I will show, a closer examination of the specificities of these
instances, far from refuting my argument, actually serves to powerfully reinforce and
confirm the validity of my thesis.

It is especially important to tackle the question of
Yugoslavia. A Sinhalese polemicist, among others, has recently argued that 'the threatened
disintegration of the federal State of Yugoslavia is surely a warning' against such
'facile ideas' that federalism might be an effective antidote to Sri Lanka's ills (De
Silva, H.L. An Appraisal of the Federal Alternative for Sri Lanka, Colombo, Sridevi
Printers Pvt.Ltd).

But did Titoist Yugoslavia represent even an imperfect
approximation of the idea of a 'federal state'?There
is a remarkably broad consensus among scholars or post-war Yugoslavia that it did not.
Wayne Vucinich opined almost a quarter century ago that despite an extraordinary
preoccupation among the ruling Titoist elite with the most minute details of the
organisational or institutional aspects of federalism post Word War II Yugoslavia was, in
effect, 'an unitary state' (Wayne Vucinich Ntaionalism and Communism in Contemporary
Yugoslavia, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1969 p282) with the
really decisive power safely centralised in the hands of Tito and his closest associates,
and a range of residual powers delegated not to the constituent 'federal' republics as
such but to Titoist sub­elites in the republican capitals of Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana,
Sarajevo, Skopje and elsewhere".

Ivo Banac has written that 'Tito's domestic
policy...actually put a premium on the power of the centre....(while)
decentralisation was enshrined in the (ostensibly confederal) Constitution of
1974...(even) this constitution retained the majority of powers for the centre and the
ruling party, and was, hence, by no means the code for a confederation' (Banac - Post
Communism as Post Yugoslavism in Eastern Europe in Revolution,, Ithaca, Cornell University
Press 1992 pp171­73)

Svetozar Stojanovic has been even more explicit on this
issue. As he says. Yugoslavia 'was not a genuine federation before 1974, and did not
automatically become one after the constitution of that year' (Stojanovic,
Mediterranean Quarterly 2, 2 Spring 1991 p94)

The reason for this apparent paradox is a simple one. 'The
distinctive forms Yugoslav socialist practice takes have all been initiated and controlled
from the top' by a monolithic party leadership, and 'one­party rule and a (truly)
autonomous society are mutually exclusive'

I have elsewhere summarised the central problem in the
Titoist conception of state­building and federalism as follows: 'Far too much form, far
too little content' (Bose - Yugoslavia: Crisis of the Titoist State in Economic and
Political Weekly, 2 May 1992 pp938-41).

Indeed. if we are to make sense of the Yugoslav outcome,
it is essential not to confuse the outward trappings of a (con)federal system with its
essence. One must be able to distinguish between the Titoist rhetoric of federalism, on
the one hand, and what it amounted to in practice in post­war Yugoslavia, on the other.
Titoist Yugoslavia's much vaunted 'federalism' was never more than apale shadow of the real thing the reason being that a highly
decentralised, federal order that is not just form but substance is not quite compatible
with the singular lack of political democracy that is implied by a permanent party
monopoly on all political activities.

In fact, as I have argued in much greater depth and detail
elsewhere, it is this very centralisation of power and the failure to undertake
substantive democratising measures in good time that lie at the root of Yugoslavia's
apocalyptic demise. Southern Asia and south-western Europe are very dissimilar contexts,
but what is common to Sri Lanka and the former Yugoslavia is the organic linkage between
frameworks of unitarist and hegemonic rule and the coming of civil war.

As for Quebec, the unexpected revival of support for the
independence option that took place there in 1990-91, and which was taken by some to
indicate that federalism merely whets the closet secessionist's insatiable appetite, must
also be seen in its proper context. The resurgence of Quebecois separatism was the result
of a conjunctural rather than a structural factor - the rejection in 1990 by English
Canada of the Meech Lake accord, concluded in June 1987, which, if implemented would have
somewhat enhanced and extended Quebec's autonomy.

As Maurice Pinard has persuasively argued the 'main
rnotivating factor' behind the resurgence was that 'the accord's failure was perceived by
many...francophones in Quebec as a humiliating rejection by English Canada...(and)
produced a deep sense of resentment among them' (Journal of International Affairs, 45,
2 Winter,1992 pp471-97).

This resentment was particularly keenly felt because the
Meech Lake agreement, on the whole, contained 'moderate, minimal (federalist) demands -
and even this was rejected by English Canada'. This denial of what they considered very
reasonable demands so enraged the francophone population that 'many former supporters of
independence who had abandoned the cause and many disillusioned federalists turned (again)
to the sovereigntist option' with a vengeance.

But it is most noteworthy that even at the peak of the
separatist resurgence 'most Quebecois still preferred some kind of renewed federalism
to a sovereigntist outcome' (emphasis added). Thus in April 1991, an opinion survey found
that 52 per cent of Quebecois still preferred federalism, either with the stains­quo
federal-province distribution of powers (16 per cent), or, significantly,with greater powers granted to the province (36 per percent). Of
the 47 per cent who favoured some form of sovereignty 37 per cent wished to retain at
least an economic association with the rest of Canada, and only 10 per cent supported a
clean break. Moreover, in 1991, as many as 62 per cent of Quebec francophones still felt
'profoundly attached' to Canada! (all statistics cited in Pinard 1992). Thus the
evidence from Quebec would seem to support, rather than invalidate, my argument for
wide­rannging decentralisation of authority and devolution of powers to constituent
federal units.

Regional autonomy consolidates rather than
weakens...

Compelling evidence is also forthcoming from other parts
of the world that granting regional autonomy to distinctive groups serves to consolidate,
rather than weaken the juridical state. The recent research of Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan
on Spain for example, has demonstrated that once the (previously highly unitary) Spanish
state made a clear commitment, in the late 1970s to 'change its historically centralised
state­structure for a new decentralised one characterised by an unprecedented devolution
of power to peripheral nationalist constituencies', i.e., the rebellious Basque country
and Catalonia, strong separatist tendencies in these regions largely dissipated, and 'the
legitimacy claims of the central government' were greatly strengthened.

Even more significantly, following the restructuring,
Basque and Catalan identities came to be seen, by and large, as complementary to
rather than in conflict with a broader Spanish and even European
identity - support for European unification was very strong among both Basques and
Catalans. In other words, once the state structure was democratised, and the
aspirations of distinctive national communities taken into account in a generous,
accommodative spirit, mutually supportive, legal and effective memberships in substate
(Catalan), state (Spanish) and suprastate (European) polities emerged. Further, the
hard-line Basque separatist movement, ETA, suffered a precipitous decline in popular
support (see Linz and Stepan in Daedalus, Spring 1992: 123-39, esp. 126-30 for
relevant statistics).

What is clearly needed, then, in Sri Lanka as in other
countries of South Asia and in much of the rest of the world, is the will, the sanity,
even, to recognise that there is nothing inviolable or sacrosanct about the constitution
of extant juridical state - that all forms of unitary or centralised authority are social
and political considerations. A view of state power that regards it as a zero sum game can never foster the creation of the
complementary, mutually supportive identities ('Tamil', 'Sri Lankan' etc.) which are
crucial to prospects for democracy and stability in multinational states.

Indeed, it is likely to achieve just the opposite. There
must therefore be the realisation that a fundamental re-negotiation of state­society
relations is the only path to lasting peace and justice. If the complete collapse of state
structures, and ensuing fragmentation, is sought to be avoided, scholars and
policy­makers must address themselves to the task of accommodating these multiple
identities by advancing creative, flexible ideas of dispersed, diffuse sovereignties - of
building institutional frameworks of decentred, democratically accountable systems that
will give distinctive national formations a sense of belonging, and will bestow upon them
the power to actively negotiate terms on which to forge larger economic and political
unions, which, 1 strongly believe, will be beneficial to all concerned. The challenge
today is to find ways and means to blend power with principle, to reconcile authority with
freedom. In other words, it is imperative to totally rethink our understanding of 'state'
and 'nation', and creatively re­conceptualise the notion of sovereignty to accommodate
both.

As Ruth Lapidoth has put it:

a compromise must be found to satisfy...the aspirations of
various groups.. the term 'sovereignty' can be used in a flexible manner; in a case of
diffusion of power, both the central governrnent and regional/ autonomous authorities
could be the lawful bearer of a share of sovereignty, without necessarily leading to the
disappearance or dismemberment of the state (1992: 345-46)

And, as Allen Buchanan has forcefully argued:

"Rightly or wrongly, more and more people are
becoming convinced that the centralised, large­scale nation­state is more an evil
than a necessity. The most fundamental assumption about the scale of viable political
association are being widely questioned....for the
first time in perhaps three centuries...when the idea of the nation­state first took hold
in (Western, European) thought and practice....secession is now on the political agendaacross the globe... (however) once the possibility of a
variety of types of political association with differing forms and degrees of self
determination is appreciated, dissatisfied groups within existing states will not be faced
with the stark choice of either remaining in a condition of ..(subjugation) or of taking
the radical step of seceding to form their own sovereign state. Exercising the right to
self determination need not always involve secession if other degrees and forms of self
determination are available." (1992: 351-52,362)

Otherwise, Tilly's prediction that 'the state­system
Europeans fashioned has not always existed...(and that) it will not endure forever' (Coercian,
capital and European States, Oxford, Basil Blackwell,1990: 225) may yet turn out to
be a prophetic one.

Demands for 'national self­determination' are a
struggle for a higher form of democracy...

Demands for 'national self­determination' are in one
sense, therefore, also a struggle for a higher form of democracy. It must then be
recognised that 'post-colonial liberation movements', far from being inherently
'undemocratic', 'subversive', 'terrorist' ad infinitum, are often the most effective
medium for democratic assertion by social groups who have been deprived of equal
citizenship rights, who have been subjected to denial and state oppression.

This is something that is true from Palestine to Kashmir,
from Kurdistan to Tamil Eelam. As Lenin once wrote, 'the bourgeois nationalism of any
oppressed nation has a general democratic content that is directed against
oppression, and it is this content that we (socialists) unconditionally support' .

"We know that in
the end, national freedom can only be secured by a voluntary pooling of
sovereignties, in a regional and ultimately in a world context. And we recognise that
our future lies with the peoples of the Indian region, and that the path of a
greater and larger union is the (eventual) direction of that future. It is a union that
will reflect the compelling and inevitable need for a common market and a common defence
and foreign policy, and which will be rooted in the common heritage that we share with our
brothers and sisters not only of Tamil Nadu but also of India as a whole. It is a shared
heritage that wefreely acknowledge and it is a
shared heritage from which we derive strength -and we know that we too, as a people,
can....contribute to that strength." ( The Thimpu Declaration, Satyendra in N.Seevaratnam ed., The
Tamil National Question and the Indo Sri Lanka Accord, Konark Publishers, New Delhi,
pp142-43) (emphasis added).

In the specific Sri Lankan context, the challenge is to
devise and implement innovative and imaginative associative structures whereby the
Sinhalese and Tamil peoples can peacefully coexist, and freely associate and cooperate in
certain vital spheres of common concern (and there are many), so that the welfare of both
peoples may be safeguarded and enhanced.

In my view, the most efficacious solution would transform
Sri Lanka into a voluntary confederation of two essentially sovereign peoples. In other
words, the Sri Lankan state as it presently exists must be thoroughly overhauled, if it is
not to expire altogether.

Kittu, in his conversations with
me, repeatedly expressed himself in favour of such a 'confederal' resolution, negotiated
in a civilised manner, rather than a bloody and acrimonious partition. A cautious and
reasonable international intervention, through the medium of the United Nations, might
potentially contribute something towards achieving this end- the UN sponsored referendum
on Eritrean sovereignty in April 1993 is one instance of a fruitful and positive UN role.
But ultimately, of course, the transformation of Sri Lanka will have to be
accomplished through the will and efforts of Sri Lankans themselves, be they Sinhalese,
Tamil or Muslim.

Such a transformation might take as its starting point,
and philosophical basis, the four­point Tamil declaration of sovereignty at the Thimpu conference in 1985. Of course, the rights of minorities,
especially the east coast Muslims in the Tamil region and the Colombo Tamils in the
Sinhalese region, is a subject that should command special attention and the utmost
priority.

Compromises could also be worked out across the table on
other contentious issues. For example, Trincomalee could be declared a free port, to which
the Sinhalese authorities and people would also enjoy
unimpeded access. Till all this is done, however, peace on the fractured island will
remain a distant and elusive dream. And, of course, if there is ever to be peace and
stability in South Asia, there is an absolutely compelling moral and pragmatic case for
extending similar processes of structural democratisation to the other countries of the
subcontinent, India in particular and the sooner the better.

The LTTE claims that 'the Tamil national movement cannot
be snuffed out. It can be reasoned with' (The Indo Sri Lanka Accord and the Tamil
National Question, Blackrose Press 1988).

Despite its element of self serving bluster, I would take
this apparently bland statement very seriously indeed - especially if I were one of those
who walk the corridors of power in New Delhi or Colombo. The capacity of individuals, and
collectivities, to go on defying state power in the name of a deeply held 'national'
cause has been repeatedly demonstrated in course of history. As Subramaniam Bharathi, poet of revolutionary Tamil
nationalism, wrote in colonised India at the turn of the century -

In our land

we can no longer be slaves, asleep. We are no longer afraid.On this earthinjustice multiplies withimpunity... To the motherland we sacrificeourselvesin adoration.Should we continue to die sobbing silently to ourselves forever?Or is life so sweet we dare not risk it for rebirth in freedom?...Is it a sin to love freedom until death?Is it a crime to end our suffering? Is there hatred in that?We have learnedthe only way is unity.Thateve have learned well.We will no longer be surprisedconfused separated by your cruelty.Our will is unshakeable.If you slice my flesh into bits, will you lose your fear of us? your hunger for revenge? Will you gain your purpose?When my corpse is burnt my heart will not melt, for there is locked unsatisfied my life desire
Freedom

[From Subramaniam Bharathi, 'Chidambaram Pillai's Reply', translated in Ludden (The
Songs and Revolution of Bharathi in Gough and Sharma eds. Imperialism and Revolution in
South Asia, New York, Monthly Review Press,1973 pp 274-75)

Bharathi's intensely
political poetry, incidentally, bears a striking resemblance to the ideology of the
LTTE, whether in its passionately romantic evocations of Tamil nationhood (which is,
nonetheless, placed at the service of the pan­Indian struggle against colonialism), or in
its emphasis on the need for social liberation of oppressed groups such as women and
'lower castes' as a requisite for strengthening and unifying the national formation]